BENGALURU: In an interesting find by a recent survey, Bengaluru tops the list of Indian cities where residents are interested in borrowing money, with almost 95 per cent of the city’s residents open to taking loans.
The survey by research agency Absolutdata, which was commissioned by the Home Credit India, a non-banking financial corporation, also showed that 40 per cent of the people in Bengaluru were willing to take a loan to buy things for which they don’t have adequate money.
The survey, which was carried out across 12 cities and 2,571 respondents, found that 39 per cent of the respondents in Bengaluru were willing to apply for loans to upgrade their lifestyles.
The other cities, where people were open to taking loans to buy things they couldn’t afford otherwise, were Jaipur (47 per cent) followed by Chandigarh (46 per cent), Lucknow (43 per cent) and Ahmedabad (42 per cent), according to the report.
Among other reasons for people taking loans included avoiding huge payments in one go in case of unplanned expenses or mismanagement of expenses.
“Bengaluru is an important market for us, and a whopping 95 per cent figure shows how the market has evolved over the last decade. As a firm propagating responsible borrowing, we are committed to enhancing the quality of life through our financial products and services for existing and prospective customers. The survey is yet another attempt to understand our customers so that we can customise our product offerings according to their needs and desires. We continue to build on the collective market intelligence coupled with our proprietary methods and technologies to evaluate all borrowers,” said Marko Carevic, chief marketing and customer experience officer, Home Credit India.
Although a majority of the Indians seemed to be in affirmation with borrowing money from various financial institutions, 48 per cent of those who resisted the idea described that the documentation hassles prevented them from applying for loans.
The second reason for loan aversion, as revealed by 38 per cent of respondents, was the apprehensions on not being approved for the loan or a feeling that having a loan was stressful.
Around 31 per cent of the people expressed fear of not being able to repay, fear of repercussions in case of default and their employer providing advance salary, as reasons to avoid taking loans, the survey stated.